Tiny Prints LOVE

I have been on the hunt for the perfect Christmas cards this year. I really want to do photo cards (and I believe Jeremy and I are the only people in the US of A who have yet to do a photo card!), and I have been pricing them trying to find the best deal on a style I love.

Photo card options are everywhere...Shutterfly and Snapfish have some cute ones; Walmart and Walgreens have pretty good prices for theirs. I even attempted a design-your-own (fairly reasonably-priced) card through Michael's new online tool, but alas, their software won't save on my computer. I had decided that I would make a collage in Picasa and print it out as a single photo, just like I did for Laurel's birth announcements.

Until today.

Tiny Prints, in all their beautifully-crafted, high quality, stinking adorable, better-than-everyone-else's-designs glory, is offering 50 free photo cards to bloggers who promote their site! I can now have amazing Christmas cards for LESS THAN the amount I would have paid to print single pictures! What a deal! Bless their hearts. I am so thankful. There is no way I could have afforded these cards otherwise...thank you, Tiny Prints!!!

Here are some examples of gorgeous photo card options from their site...

(PS: You can participate, too! Just fill out this form and they will send you more instructions! Then you can join me in celebrating finding the perfect holiday card...and getting 50 of them for free from Tiny Prints! Woo hoo!)

Newborn Photo Shoot

Both of my shoulders have been puked on this morning, and it's not even 9am! That is neither here nor there. :)

My friend Audrey (art teacher at the school where I've been working for the last 3 years) took some newborn pictures of Laurel on March 17. They are GREAT! I used them when I designed Laurel's birth announcement and I plan to do a collage of them in her nursery (once she has a nursery :). Here are some of my favorites from the photo shoot...

A One-Month Update

Ooh, I have been a bad blogger! My apologies.

In case you missed it: I had a baby! Laurel Ann was born Saturday, February 26, 2011 (on her Aunt Val's 30th birthday!). Our lives have changed completely and instantaneously...and for the better!

Here's a look over Laurel's life so far...

Birth Day!

Family of THREE!

Grandparents!

Aunts and Uncles!

Outings!

LOTS of "firsts!"

I am leaving out approximately 1000 pictures of so many fun and exciting things...visitors, cute expressions Laurel's made, trips and so much more!...she has had a busy month!!

Here are her "stats," then and now...

February 26, 2011

7 pounds, 1 ounce

19 1/2 inches long

March 28, 2011

9 pounds, 12 ounces (that's 75th percentile, people!)

22 inches long (90th percentile!)

That's all for now! I won't make any promises about blogging (or not! :), but I will say this: I am much better at posting regularly on Facebook, so check there for updates!

I feel a LITTLE bad...but only a little.

Psst-- can you keep a secret?

Yesterday was Snow Day #5 for me. Yes, FIVE days out of the last nine were "bad weather" days where I live. I work at a school, and even though I am not a District employee, I still got to stay home on each and every one of the days the school was closed.

It was glorious, really. Especially yesterday. Jeremy and I were both off, and our day was the perfect mix of productivity and relaxation...like a Saturday smack-dab in the middle of the week. Perfection.

But the thing about it is that the kids and the teachers at my school are frustrated about all these snow days. The talk is all about when we'll make up the days and if any of them can be forgiven by the state, since only two bad weather days are built in to the District calendar. People are annoyed that their plans are thrown off and we'll be halfway into June and still in school, if things continue at this rate.

But here's the secret: with my organization, we have to work through the summers anyway; we don't get to be off just because school is out. We run summer programs and camps or we assist with summer school (yawn) if absolutely necessary. So for someone like me, a contract employee with the District, these five days were F-R-E-E. Without cost. I got paid for each any every one and did not have to use a solitary sick or personal day!

But wait! There's more to the secret. :)

This is my "final month" of pregnancy, so I just got an extra week of what can basically be called "vacation" when I am physically at my largest and most-tired. THANK YOU, LORD!! Seriously, it feels like a gift from Heaven sent just for me, all this so-called bad weather.

So I feel a LITTLE bad for the students having to make up their days of school, and for the teachers trying to cram in their lessons with an entire week less instruction time than they should have, and for the other District employees that will have to work when it should be "summer," and for the folks everywhere ELSE that didn't get off Scot-free for a solid week...

I feel a LITTLE bad...but only a little. ;)

Movies and Moods

Some categories of movies, in no particular order...

Movies to watch when I need a good cry:
I Am Sam
Simon Birch
Fried Green Tomatoes
The Notebook
Steel Magnolias
Up

Movies to watch when I need a good laugh: 
Elf
Zoolander
The Emperor's New Groove
Dumb and Dumber

Movies that inspire me: 
Freedom Writers
Invictus
Hotel Rwanda
Braveheart
The Shawshank Redemption

Movies I could watch over and over:
White Christmas (okay pretty much ALL of the musicals I was obsessed with during childhood :) 
Babies
Legally Blonde
Now and Then
Almost all Disney/Pixar movies

What would you add to these lists? What categories am I forgetting?